Armistice
by ncfan
Summary: For Konoha and Oto, the war would be over when the morning came. But for them, the war had been long over. AU.


Just to warn you, they may be just a little OOC. Then, considering the situation, maybe they aren't.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

Her hand was cold and limp, nearly totally drained of any life, and as he wound his fingers in hers, he wondered if she was even still alive, or if she had passed away sometime between being injured and the fight dying down, as strangely damp, inky darkness fell over the cityscape and the alleyway was deep and dark with shadows. The sickly sweet smell of rotting fruit came from the dumpster nearby.

But then her eyes fluttered open, bleary and frowning before recognizing him, and the process of checking her neck for a pulse became unnecessary as Kabuto felt his heart hammer wildly in his chest with unexpected relief.

"I seem to recall," he muttered shakily, a sharp, ridiculously irrational note entering into his voice, "I seem to recall telling you, very clearly, not to get involved. Is there something wrong with your hearing, Shizune?"

A sharp twitch of her thin mouth indicated small annoyance, and Kabuto again felt the bizarre relief, that she was still alert enough to express irritation. "There's nothing wrong with my ears, no. But I'll thank you not to expect me to do nothing."

"Yes, you followed your duty to your leader, and for your troubles, you have gotten a bullet to the stomach and no guarantee that you're going to live to see the next sunrise."

A moment passed in between his sharp, caustic words, in which Shizune's breathing was ragged and growing more shallow, the scream of sirens passed beyond the alleyway, and Kabuto prayed that no one would notice them, where they were, bleeding and dying and praying for a chance to be allowed to live again.

Shizune seemed to be trying to catch her breath and draw in enough strength to raise her voice above a hoarse, barely audible whisper. Her fingers in his hand grew taut and responded to the outside pressure of his hand. Shakily, her breathing catching with every second, Shizune managed a smile. "Well," she whispered, "at least the company isn't bad. Though I have to say… You're usually more prone to mincing words than you are tonight."

The sound of a car speeding past in the street made Kabuto instinctively flinch, even knowing that, melted into the darkness as they were, the only people who would notice them would be some denizen of the streets, or people like them, who had wandered into the alleyway in the aftermath of that evening's fight. Kabuto didn't worry about that; the only ones who ever lingered on were the wounded, and he was alone that night in those who hung by an injured soldier.

He laced his fingers more tightly in hers. "You have that effect."

She was the only one who had that effect on him, anymore, along with a host of others that were privy only to them.

Somewhere overhead, there was a television on in someone's apartment. The sounds were fuzzy and distorted, like it was being played through a screen or a filter, or from across an inestimably long distance.

Shizune frowned slightly, tipping her head from side to side. "I have that effect?" Her low voice was slightly blurred, hazy and indistinct. "Now what's that supposed to mean?"

Slipping further and further away, by each passing second in the night.

"Exactly what I said." He struggled to keep any emotion that she might have picked up on out of his voice, an old habit that refused to die. "There are times when five words are too many and one will do. This isn't the time for five words."

Huddled against the old brick wall, her legs crumpled beneath her like the lifeless legs of a stillborn baby, cradled around the back like a living baby, Shizune's frown didn't waver. A soft sigh hit the still night air. "I suppose I should have expected that out of you. Evasive…evasive as always."

_Why are we having this conversation? Why are we here? What are we doing? _Kabuto had wondered that since the day they had met, nearly three years ago, had not ceased to wonder in those three years, and wondered that night, with a sort of acceptance of everything that had happened and would not happen.

"Have you…ever been honest?" Strands of coal black hair fell over her drooping eyes, her pale face growing sallow. There was a strange note to the timbre of her soft voice, both curious and almost reproachful, all the while carrying the implication that she didn't really care how he answered. "Have you?"

Kabuto laughed humorlessly. "I believe you put it best when you said that I am nothing if not inherently _dishonest_. In fact, I think you called me a pathological liar."

She smiled. "I remember. But you still haven't answered me."

Water dripped down a gutter and an iron pipe as he leaned closer over her, trying to move her into a more comfortable position. "I have been honest…" Kabuto took a deep breath, and went on "…I have been honest, to Orochimaru-sama, to my father… and to you. No one else."

They might as well have been left alone in an empty city that night, as the world wasn't flowing through them anymore but around them. Moments passed by as slow and sluggish as years, floating to the strains of music played too quietly to be heard.

Shizune nodded, then sucked in a sharp breath as she slumped forward, thin body crashing against his.

"Shizune?" The gunshot wound to her stomach seemed to finally be taking its most deadly effect. Kabuto put his hand under her chin and forced her head upwards, their eyes meeting in a revelation of fear and the truth.

"It…doesn't hurt," she gasped, heaving for air as oxygen's passage to her lungs was being cut off, as though there was a hand clenching her throat to strangle the life out of her. "It doesn't hurt."

Thought crashed through his mind, as he mentally raced for ways to save her.

Get up and run to one of the apartments, knock on the door and beg for help.

Find a phone, call 911.

Go out into the street, risk being seen by enemies, and shout for an ambulance.

Do something, anything. Don't let her die there, on the ground in some squalid back alley.

Extricating his fingers from her grip, Kabuto started to stand up and act on his worries, eyes searching desperately for a door in the smooth painting of night's deep veil—

—But stopped when a hand closed weakly around his wrist.

Kabuto turned and saw that for the first time that night, there was fear in Shizune's eyes, fear that made everything else that had ever happened insignificant.

"Please," Shizune whispered pleadingly. "Stay with me."

If he took one step away, just for a moment, then she would live. Her life would be guaranteed, and whatever happened, Shizune would live on beyond that night. If he stepped away, she would survive.

However, if Kabuto acquiesced to her request, there was no guarantee that Shizune wouldn't die in his arms. There was no guarantee that the morning would come and her eyes would still be alive to see the sun rise. There was no way to tell if someone would find them.

Inhumanity on his part would save her life, but the truth finally hit him that where Shizune was concerned, he had always been too foolish, too soft, and far too human.

"Of course." Kabuto dropped back to his knees beside her, sliding back down into the darkness, slipping an arm around her shoulders to again cradle her like a baby with a broken body, as though she was made of glass. "Of course."

Love was the salvation and the ruin of the earth just as it had been for both of their lives.

Kabuto bent and kissed her gently, the sensation familiar and intoxicatingly sweet, even when the circumstances that had brought them together that night were taken into account. He could taste blood on her lips, as a hand found his in the cool night.

For Konoha and Oto, the war would be over when morning came, but for them, it was already over.


End file.
